


Familiarity Breeds More Than Contempt

by thirdtimecharmed



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Boarding School, M/M, Roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-27
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 06:06:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirdtimecharmed/pseuds/thirdtimecharmed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No doubt one of many, a bit of a boarding school AU with no other characters as of yet. John and Dave are roommates, fluffy shenanigans follow!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There is also more to come, I promise.

      It isn’t fair. No one should be able to get away with that kind of thing, but Dave Strider often seems to be the exception to any and all rules. It isn’t so much that he hates authority, although you suppose that’s a part of it, he also has a complete disdain for things he does not want to entangle himself in. You can respect that, even if it does annoy you. And it really, really annoys you. Especially because it doesn’t: in fact it has the opposite effect.  
There is nothing inherently attractive about two buttons undone, a loose necktie, half a shirt untucked and sloppily ironed trousers. Unless they are placed on Dave’s lithe body, that is. He shouldn’t be able to display so much of his constantly tensing and relaxing throat. It shouldn’t affect you so much either, but you ignore that part for now. At least, you try to. As you sit in class, determinedly facing forward, he is constantly catching the corner of your eye.  
-  
     It should be fucking illegal for someone to chew on their pen that way. Normally you find pen chewing goddamn disgusting, nothing being worse than borrowing a writing utensil from some shmuck and finding it covered in teeth marks and crusted up spit. John Egbert, however, can suck on his pen until the apocalypse donkey fucks everyone into hell as far as you’re concerned.  
You should hate yourself for thinking of him this way. He’s your best goddamn friend after all, not just mindless eye candy dangling in front of you like a piece of yarn in front of a rabid housecat. Still, that gigantic roadblock is easy enough to forget as his tongue darts out to click the pen in and out, and you have to wrench your gaze away like you’re keeping a shopaholic from a shoe sale. Figures he’s totally oblivious to it all, you ponder, pretending to stare out a window to get a better view. You could even get by the teeth, you realize.  
-  
     After class, it’s easier. After class, you can laugh at his silly jokes that aren’t even supposed to be silly, and you can pretend you are ignoring the curve of his exposed wrist as he pushes up his sleeve. There are other things to look at outside, trees and squirrels and clouds and passing friends.  
     During class, it’s too easy to forget that he’s also your friend. The awkward realizations never hit until the period ends and he fires some comment at you, but while you sit there bored to death, you could be completely derailed by an errant motion that exposed more of his collarbone. Not a day goes by that you wish your uniform policy was better enforced. All the while, though, you know that there’s nothing you like better than to catch a glimpse of his cheekbone or the freckles he hates so much.  
-  
     At least when he’s outside the hellhole there’s nothing rod shaped to cram down his gullet. You can even ignore hot dog nights, when you’re too busy gagging over shitty food to answer to the phallic sirens that flap around your head. You aren’t sure what demon took over your mind long enough to sign you up for a boarding school, especially an all boys fun fest, but you’re resenting it more and more. Even though it led you to John Egbert, it brought a whole fucking slew of problems with it.  
-  
     “Christ I’m pretty sure they never speak to each other,” he complains, tossing his backpack on the bunk above yours and making the whole unstable structure wobble, “if they did, they’d realize they’re all assigning enough work to keep Einstein busy for half a year,”  
     “I bet that’s exactly what they do!” you exclaim, taking a more than welcome break from math homework, “Or I guess what they don’t do. Either that or they’re all in some evil plot to get us,” your eyes widen with sincerity, and he gifts you with a smirk that you choose to believe is fond, instead of mocking. It took you a while after becoming roommates to learn the difference, but you’re pretty sure now.  
     “Damn, think we should inform the authorities or would that be playing right into their hands?” he continues the joke, flinging himself up onto his bed only to lean over and stare at you upside-down. His tie dangles down beside him, and you laugh at the sight.  
     “I think they’d know we were on to them,” you nod, “We have to take them down ourselves.”  
He looks contemplative for a moment, then grins wide.  
     “Well hell that’s easy enough,” he says, and disappears back over the edge. Half a second later, his book bag goes flying over the edge and you jump at the sudden crash. “We just won’t play into their dumb mind games. Like hell am I doing work.”  
     You roll your eyes and turn back to your textbook. Moments later, you hear the inevitable request.  
     “Dude can you hand me my bag?”  
     “Why do you need your bag, Dave?” you ask, sounding scripted because of course you already know. This happens just about every day, and sure enough. . .   
      “My iPod’s in there, are you about to condemn me to a silent loveless existence up here on mount sucknasty?” he insists, using the name he gave the bunk beds in your first year here.  
     “Maybe if you wanted to listen to music, it would be a good idea to not throw your bag across the room,” you suggest mildly, trying to hold back an undignified giggle, “that’s a thing that most people know not to do if music is a thing they want.”  
     “Fuck you man I do this every day,” he groaned, “I don’t want to get up, its right by your hand. You do the math.”  
     “It’s actually right by the door,” you inform him, rolling your eyes even as you get up, “and now you just owe me for this time along with all the other times.”  
     Honestly you’re amazed his iPod isn’t broken. You’re amazed everything he owns isn’t broken, including most of the bones in his body. Never before in your life have you met someone who’s so reckless. Dave will throw himself over fences, toss heavy books onto huge piles of CD’s, and lob pencils at the ceiling until one sticks. Sometimes it’s funny, sure, but other times you’ve been beaned with flying learning materials, and once you actually slipped on a banana peel he left on the floor.  
     Life is always an adventure.  
-  
     You can’t believe he puts up with you. As some shitty song you only added because your older brother forced the album on you two birthdays ago blares through your headphones, you contemplate the entirety of your impossible relationship with your roommate. It shouldn’t even have been a friendship, really. You fully expected the dork who kept his sock drawer arranged fastidiously to hate every second of living with a committed slob who did his homework only when choirs of angels aligned perfectly in the heavens to serenade flying pigs in perfect thirds.  
      But somehow, you couldn’t manage to hate him-- John was the perfect kid to live side by side with. Sure, at first, your senses of humor collided with the force of two freight trains full of lard, but in the end you stopped mocking his Nic Cage posters and he decided that puzzling out irony in stream of consciousness babbling was likely to get him hit with whatever happened to be in your hand. A stable tolerance was reached quickly, after tears and an accidental beaning with a history book, and from there friendship reached out and grabbed you both firmly by the ass. Soon it was bro fisting and eating dinner together and the asshole guys you had started to talk to who had offered you free passes to booze and debauchery faded into the background, eclipsed somehow by your dorky pal in thick framed glasses.  
     Back then, and even now, you got periodic hints you were his only real friend. Sure you saw him talking to some screaming redhead between gym and science, and he wrote enough letters back and forth with his cousin Jade to fill a library twice, but he wasn’t close with anyone. Not that you were one to talk. Mr. Popular McBigFish in middle school had turned into That Jerk in a different pond, but you couldn’t say you cared. Who did you really want to talk to, in this shit pit of pretension, other than your best bro and convenient roommate? In your mind, this was all just a convenient setup.  
     Plus on most days, if you asked nicely, he’d pick up your crap. You toss your iPod to yourself in contemplation of the real issue. It isn’t why you were friends. The real question, at least to you, is why you aren’t more. Sure, you’ve got no idea which way his baseball bat swings, but you’re damn well positive sitting passively through two more years of him sticking pens in his mouth and walking around in his boxers and a T shirt looking for a sweatervest will set you apeshit and make you start flinging things off of the roof.  
You change songs, trying to scramble your thoughts.  
-  
      Your head is in his lap and you have no idea how it happened. Immediately, you begin the panic checklist, as you realize that you don’t know where you are or why your butt hurts so much or where all these books came from. Slowly, though, the pieces rearrange themselves into a coherent timeline. Finals, library, studying, drowsy. Dave.  
     If nothing else, it’s the perfect way to become very alert, very fast. Not wanting to move too much, you shoot a glance up at Dave to see what his response to this blatant snuggling is. You expect disdain, or maybe even discomfort, but he doesn’t even look like he’s paying attention to you. He’s actually studying for once, and the sight is so rare that you close your eyes and pretend to be out for the count so he doesn’t have to pretend he wasn’t putting in any effort. You both know he’s super smart, or else he wouldn’t be here, but he likes to pretend he’s better than normal people who have to try.  
     In your fake sleep, your lips curl into a smile. You’ve seen the textbooks piled on the foot of his bed, and you’ve seen his highlighted notes in glimpses you catch when he thinks you aren’t paying attention. You can’t bite back a chuckle, thinking about what he would say if he knew you were awake to spy on him, and judging by how his knees are moving, you’re about to find out.  
     “Good morning sleeping beauty. Too bad we can’t all take a divebomb in the library, I had one more leg to fall asleep on.”  
     “Dave, I started out on your shoulder,” you protest, sitting up quickly and hoping your cheeks aren’t as flushed as they feel.  
     “That sure as hell isn’t where you landed though,” he laughs, and you try your hardest to hold up a glare.  
     “At least I was actually working,” you scoff, and watch in smug satisfaction as he slams his book shut and tosses it to the side.  
     “Yeah well we can’t all be super nerds. Some of us have to be civilians getting hit with rogue pop quizzes that you dork heroes can save us from,” he shrugs, and you stop glaring to laugh, earning you a dark look from some kid at a nearby table.  
     “I guess it is just my job to save you, innocent citizen!” you attempt to boom heroically. It fails, obviously, and his snorting laughter gets you both kicked out of the library.  
-  
      You can’t believe how dorky he is. Seriously, if there was an award for dipshitting your way into adorable scenarios, you’d hand it to this kid before you counted half the votes. His head’s in your lap and you’ve actually picked up a textbook to keep your hands from playing with his ridiculous tangle of hair.  
      Sure he didn’t start out there. You let him doze on your shoulder for god knows how long before he shifted and fell forward. At this point, you figured it’d be cruel to move him anywhere. Instead you stare at his sleeping face, and feel like some ambient stalker even as you do. Still, it’s gratifying to learn that the soft snores come from a slightly open mouth, and the bedhead must be a result of malicious gnomes because his head is completely still.  
     He makes little mumbles and indecipherable sounds, and you try to figure out his dream, before realizing you don’t have nearly enough clues, and that you’re a massive creep for wanting to know in the first place. Eventually, you get bored and crack open a textbook, actually trying to absorb the useless lines of text for once. You freeze a few minutes later, wondering if you heard correctly.  
      “Dave....” it’s soft and muttered and you wonder if he’s woken up and if he wonders why he’s face down in your lap, but then he rolls a bit and smacks his mouth and you realize he’s still passed out. Focusing becomes that much harder. No doubt he’s just fighting off scores of zombies at your side, or running after Nic Cage in a fan brawl, but a part of your mind wonders if he’s moaning your name for some other reason in his dream world, and you have to literally shake yourself out of it.  
     That’s why, when he wakes, you’re so buried in your studies. For once in your long and bountiful history of being the worst student to blemish the face of the world, you are able to banish anything unwanted in favor of world history. It all works out from there; you’re allowed to act more awkward than an eleven year old kid at a slow dance and play the committed slacker got caught studying instead of the so called best friend who was thinking things that were decidedly not not homosexual.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Birthday fun

     He is always late. At this point you’ve figured out to leave exactly seven minutes between the time you give him and the actual starting point. Lucky for you, he always believes it when you say his class starts at 10:53 rather than 11 on the dot, and he doesn’t wonder when you schedule meetings at 6:27. This time, though, it’s different. His allotted seven minutes have long since passed, and you’ve been leaning on this tree trying to look like you know what you’re doing for the past ten.  
     It is especially disconcerting this time around, because today just happens to be April 13th. It’s your birthday, it’s a coveted weekend, and all kinds of fun is in the cards for today. You even had his ironclad promise that the two of you would go see the new Nic Cage movie today, and he HATES Nic Cage. Understandably, you were more than a little excited, but the doofy grin has been steadily falling off your face for fifteen minutes now.  
     As he comes dashing over the lawn, however, it cautiously returns. He’s exactly 19 minutes late, you discover as you check your watch, and you hope he has a really really good reason.  
     “Fuck fucking fuckety shit balls, sorry dude,” he pants as he skids to a stop in front of you, and you take the opportunity to realize that he is out of uniform as well. He is out of uniform, and tight black T-Shirts really suit him. Then you remember with a start that you’re supposed to be affronted, but all your worry has rushed away into the mercifully sunny sky.  
     “It’s okay Dave!” you assure him, smiling again, “At least you didn’t stand me up.”  
     “Christ and leave you to rot on your birthday? No free weekend would be worth the two years of accusing stares and kicked puppy looks you’d give me,” he laughs, and you glare at him.  
     “I do not look like a kicked puppy,” you insist, and he snorts before he can stop himself. After a moment, you join him, because deep down you know he’s right and what’s the point of being mad at him? It’s your birthday, after all.  
     His thoughts seem to be running along the same track as yours, because he’s pulling something small and brightly wrapped out of his banged up messenger bag.  
     “Here,” he starts up, just as you interrupt with, “You didn’t have to-” and then you both cut off, the laughter becoming a bit more awkward.  
     “Fuck you, it’s your birthday, I had to do something,” he insists, practically forcing the package at you. You take it, albeit reluctantly, and as your fingers brush, you can feel him observing, already trying to gauge your reaction. Luckily, you don’t have to pretend to look excited. Despite all the dorky things you know he does in secret like sing loudly in the shower and put his pants on backwards when he’s in a hurry in the morning, Dave has really good taste in stuff, and you’re eager to see what he picked out for you.  
     There’s actually a lot of stuff in there! The first thing you pull out is a pair of fake plastic vampire teeth, the kind that are two for a dollar at gas stations. Instantly, you know what he’s doing and you glare at him.  
     “My teeth aren’t this bad,” you insist, and he grins.  
     “They’re pretty close bro,” he tells you, snatching them and stuffing them in his own mouth, “I’m John Egbert,” he says, faking a high pitched voice only to overshoot and end up around four-year-old girl, “and I iron my underwear.”  
     “Shut up!” you laugh, punching his shoulder, “That was my dad, okay?”  
     “I’m John Egbert and my dad irons my underwear for me,” he corrects himself. You roll your eyes and five up on him, choosing instead to rifle back through the box. There’s assorted candy, of course (nothing with nuts, you note gratefully). There’s also... a nose plug? You hold it up in consternation, and he answers with an easy grin.  
     "You snore dude,” he shrugs, “Figured you’d want it.”  
     “Dave is this my birthday or yours?” You grouse, not smiling anymore as you continue your browsing. The sudden shift on his face from friendly teasing to uncertainty goes unnoticed.  
      Good moods are restored all around, however, when you find the actual gift amidst the rabble. You hold them up, grinning a mile wide, and his responding laugh is music to your ears.  
     “Really?” you ask eagerly, not willing to risk anything without confirmation.  
     “Really,” he nods.  
     “I’m ready?” you are wide eyed and hesitant, not daring to believe it.  
     “I’m not gonna lie and say you were born ready man but you’ve earned them,” he nods, “now christ put them on before the sun goes down and they’re totally fucking useless.”  
     “They’re totally useless all the time,” you wave him off, “but that’s the point!”  
     “Thanks for laying that out for us dude, wanna explain that the sky’s blue and the food here sucks now?” he quips, but you aren’t even listening. The pair of blue shutter shades goes on almost instantly, and you beam even as your eyesight is cut off by half.  
     “How do I look?” you ask, trying to wipe the smile off your face and turn it into a mask of unfeeling coolness.      You are completely unsuccessful, and his smirk tells you that instantly.  
     “Like a complete dork,” he assures you, but he sounds happy, so you are too.  
     “Thanks!” you beam, and then you do something kind of dumb.  
-  
      The kid is fucking hugging you. You aren’t sure what to do with your arms or your torso and you’re especially hazy on what to do with your lower half. First off you focus on trying not to inadvertently hump the poor sap. Upon regaining your balance, though, you realize you’ve been standing there like a lamppost for way too long. Only then do you remind your arms that they should’ve been hugging back a good goddamn while ago and if they don’t get a doucheguzzling move on they’re going to lose their chance.  
     Then you’re finally hugging him back, and for the first time in your life that level of contact isn’t making your skin crawl. In fact, it’s more comfortable than your favorite raggedy old piece of shit t-shirt, which is saying something. If you didn’t have a level of self preservation that would make any testosteroney squirrel killing survival expert currently waving his knowledge boner around on survival shows jealous, you would have buried your face in his tangle of dark hair. Instead, you let go after some vaguely acceptable interval.  
     “Happy birthday man,” you tell him, tuning your grin down into a much safer smirk. He beams back, unworried, and for the first time, you notice. It makes you want to claw your own face off when it hits, but you finally figure out that this goddamn boy has managed to make you want him for more than sloppy makeouts in deserted hallways. You’d be perfectly happy, apparently, to just cuddle him senseless and watch some dipshit parade on TV just to see him smile at you like he is right now, like you’re the most important thing that’s ever happened to him, instead of some random waste of space that he met by chance.  
     “Well shit,” you finally break your train of thought, along with the surprisingly un-awkward silence, “are we going to stand here all day smiling or actually get something done?”  
     He rolls his eyes and puts everything back in the box.  
     “Just let me put this away and we’ll go!” he calls out, and you nod, waving him on. Then it’s your turn to lean against the tree and wonder what the fuck happened to your friend, until he comes running back, cheeks flushed and shutter shades threatening to drop off the end of his nose.  
     “Let’s go!” he calls, grabbing your wrist to drag you along. In between your sudden focus on hands and fingers, you reflect that he really is a loser. Still, you twist your fingers with his and pretend to ignore the sidelong glance he shoots you as you head off for a day of adventure.  
-  
     Calling something the best day ever at the ripe young age of sixteen may be a bit of a stretch, but as you settle in to bed at the end of your birthday, you’re fairly confident that nothing could ever top it. You’re pretty sure you did everything that there was to do, then there were some repeats when the well ran dry, and sure, Dave complained the whole time, but he always does that. Although you might never want to look at another ice cream cone again, and petting zoos will now be forever boring, you call it totally worth it.  
     There was even a package from your dad waiting on your bed when you got back, stuffed with baked goods of all types and a very nice note. Dave laughed at your face when you opened it, asking something about paternal poisoning attempts and then mocking you even more when he realized you were the only kid on earth who got sick of birthday cake. Then there were stalwart promises to help you dispose of the cake, vague threats as to what he could do with said cake, and then a cake fight which turned your dorm room into something vaguely reminiscent of a world in Mario Kart.  
     Of course after that there was frantic cleaning with napkins you had to steal from the dining hall, and then Dave nabbed the shower while you hollered threats involving more cake and never speaking to him again through the door, but eventually everything was returned to some version of normal. You hum happily as you sink into your bed at last, ignoring little smears of frosting you can still see on the walls. Those can be dealt with tomorrow, you decide, and then you remember something.  
     “Dave!” you hiss, almost in a panic as you kick the bed above you, “Dave are you awake?”  
     “I am now,” he grumbles, and you can hear him roll over. Soon after, a blond mop descends just to the left of you, “What is it now, did you forget to lob a cupcake at my solar plexus?”  
     “Shush!” you laugh, “I just forgot to say thank you!”  
     “Okay,” he says, and even in the dark you can sense his expectant impression. After a pause, he snorts, “Come on bro shoot, I only have so long before all the blood currently swishing around in my head is gonna make me pass out.”  
     "Thank you,” you say flatly, unable to completely cover up the smile in your voice. He keeps dangling down to stare at you, even after he snorts his acceptance; in the dim gleam coming in from somewhere you realize something.  
     “Are you wearing your shades?” you ask him, baffled.  
     “What if I am?” he defends immediately, which reinforces your belief that you are completely correct.  
     “Then that’s totally dumb,” you inform him, and begin to reach out quietly in the dark, doing your best to avoid detection.  
     “It is not,” he insists, totally unaware of your plan, “It’s cooler than a mermaid’s tits in the Arctic.”  
     “Sure.” You appease him, then make your snatch. You’re pretty sure you accidentally stick a finger up his nose at some point, but it’s worth it, because there in your hands are the sunglasses that glint at you day by day, and you know for a fact that in the gloom there is a Dave Strider above you completely shadesless.  
     “Give those back,” he insists, and you feel rather than see the expectant hand stretch out.  
     “How do you even sleep in these?” you ask him, completely ignoring his demands to fiddle with them, “They must be really uncomfortable.”  
     “They fit like a second skin. In fact, its definitely physically painful to not have them on my face, I think I’m going to catch some deadly disease because I’m so exposed bro,” he insists, and his voice barely modulates.           You just laugh.  
     “I think you can stand to spend one night without your shades, Dave,” you insist, and he huffs.  
     “What the fuck is the point of this anyway dude, why can’t you just mock me and then give me my shit back?” he pleads, and you hesitate, because aren’t sure. There’s no real reason for you to want to keep the stupid things, other than to make Dave live half a night without them. It could be the satisfaction of winning for once, you suppose, or the vague certainty that you had some sort of effect on his life. Really it’s the desire to break down some of those barriers you still stumble into from time to time-- the odd moments of abrasive sarcasm that cut a little too close, and the times where he wouldn’t say a word, too afraid of heightened emotion. You, however, can’t be expected to know this. You’re still trying to pretend you don’t want to pull him in by the necktie sometimes and kiss him silly; unraveling the emotional complexities of the whole relationship is a bit too much to expect.  
     No matter the reason, you set the shades next to your pillow.  
     “Tomorrow,” you promise, and you hear him sigh theatrically.  
     “Fuck you man,” he groans as he flops back into his bunk. Then there’s a pause, “and happy birthday you stupid sack of shit.”  
     “Thanks Dave!” you grin and ignore the rest of the drivel.  
      You fall asleep with his shades in your hand.


End file.
